Godolphin homebred Pretty Mischievous ‘ historic Kentucky Oaks (G1) victory still hasn’t quite sunk in yet for Brendan Walsh.
“Maybe after the weekend it will,” Walsh said the morning of May 6 after landing the biggest race of his training career. “It’s kind of surreal. It’s a great feeling and I’m just delighted for everybody.”
After 13 years of working for Godolphin, it was especially gratifying to reward the program with their first Oaks win with Pretty Mischievous.
“I started off at their farm in Ireland and ever since they’ve been a big influence on my career,” Walsh said. “I did nine winters for them in Dubai as an exercise rider for them. It’s quite an honor to train for them and to train horses of this caliber. It’s just a privilege.
“(Godolphin has) a great broodmare band in this country and for them to win, for any breeder, to win an Oaks is the ultimate reward for years and years of hard work. It’s as big a reward for them as it is for me.”
A daughter of Into Mischief , Pretty Mischievous is out of the Tapit mare Pretty City Dancer , a $3.5 million purchase for Godolphin at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Mixed Sale. Although the grade 1-winning mare was purchased in foal to Medaglia d’Oro , Pretty Mischievous is the first foal resulting from a Godolphin-planned mating and was raised at the outfit’s Lexington farm.
Trainer Brendan Walsh talks with media May 6 at Churchill Downs
Pretty Mischievous “cooled out great and seems fresh this morning,” according to Walsh. While a next target hasn’t been pinpointed quite yet, Walsh feels the “obvious ones” are the races they’ll have on the filly’s agenda.
Outfitted with blinkers for the first time in the Oaks, Walsh felt the equipment change played a hand in Pretty Mischievous’ success.
“I think the (blinkers) helped her. She was traveling as good as she ever did but she did give him a nice kick clear and maybe idled a little again as she tends to do but they definitely didn’t have a negative effect on her whatsoever,” Walsh said. “We’re probably good keeping them on for now.”
Pretty Mischievous was entering the Oaks off a runner-up effort in the Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots.
The connections of Oaks runner-up Gambling Girl are elated and looking forward to a summer campaign with the daughter of Dialed In . Racing in 10th of 14 early on, Gambling Girl launched a six-wide bid at the top of the lane and rallied gallantly to fall a neck short of Pretty Mischievous at the wire.
“She tries hard every time she races,” Repole Stable manager Danielle Bricker said of Gambling Girl. “Her sitting back as far as she was and coming as wide as she did made us wonder ‘is she going to get tired from making up that extra ground or keep going’ so we were very proud of her and how she ran. For her to finish second was a huge, huge effort.”
Bricker reported that Gambling Girl would be sent to trainer Todd Pletcher’s stable division at Saratoga Race Course with an eye on the major divisional grade 1 events.
“We’ll get a plan together for her and, hopefully, she performs well up there,” Bricker said. “She came out (the Oaks) really well. We came back to the barn yesterday after the race and she was still walking around on her toes. Yesterday before her race, she was getting pretty feisty in the stall; normally she’s pretty quiet and easy-going so it seemed like she was fired up and ready to run.”
